Need for Home Health Care Services among Elderly Patients

Abstract

Introduction: Human population is ageing and hence the concerns about the aged need adequate attention. Old age constitutes one of the major challenges confronted by the societies in the present century. Objective: To assess the need for home health care services, among elderly patients. Method: The non- experimental descriptive research design. Using non probability convenient sampling technique 100 elderly patients were selected. Section A: Socio-demographic variables of elderly patients. Section B: Need for home health care service among elderly patients. Findings: Majority of the subjects (94%) have expressed the need for home health care services. Most of the subjects (45%) have expressed that their family requires home health care service once in a month & Most of them would prefer to avail services such as blood pressure monitoring (18%) Temperature pulse respiration (TPR) monitoring (11%) and wound dressing (9%). Only 24 out of 100 subjects have utilized home health care services and most of them (14) have availed the services of injection for which they have paid between 30 Rs – 500Rs. Conclusion: The study concludes that majority of elderly patients had felt a need to avail home health care services in future and majority of them have expressed that their family required home health care services once in a month. Recommendations: Since the study has identified that there is a strong need of home health care services by elderly patients, it is recommended to develop a training module and prepare nurses to provide effective home health care service.